Mutoscope Brown Postcards

Issuing Company: Mutoscope
Country of Issue: USA
Year of Issue: 1940
Color/B&W: Brown tone
Number of Cards in Set: 32
Card Size: 3 1/4" x 5 1/4"
Issued as insert with what product: Came out of coin-operated arcade machines

Notes: Unnumbered. These cards have a brown tone. These cards can be found with postcard backs or with blank backs. There are 16 male movie stars and 16 female movie stars in this set and it looks like a buyer could choose to buy a male or female star as original groups of these cards often contain all male stars or all female stars.

Some of these cards list the name of a recent film for the star. Most of the cards show a photo of the star, though four of the cards show an artist's rendering of the star. All four of the "artwork image" cards have the same captioning format. Two lines: Name (Robert Taylor) followed by "Courtesy of Screen Book". (Screen Book was a movie star magazine in the 1930s and 1940s.)

Date info: All the movies mentioned on the cards that have been checked are from 1939 and 1940, dating the set to about 1940.

Thanks to Otis Johnson for help with this checklist.


Richard Arlen – Universal Star
Jean Arthur - "Courtesy of Screen Book"
Mischa Auer - Universal Star
Lew Ayres – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – "To Own World"
Madeleine Carroll - "Courtesy of Screen Book"
Joan Crawford - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - "Ice Follies of 1939"
Bette Davis
Andy Devine – Universal Star
Marlene Dietrich
Robert Donat – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – "Goodbye Mr. Chips"
Nelson Eddy - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - "New Moon"
Alice Fay - "Courtesy of Screen Book"
W. C. Fields – Universal Star
Preston Foster - Universal Star - "Society Smugglers"
Clark Gable – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – "Boom Town"
Greer Garson - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - "Pride and Prejudice"
Hedy Lamarr – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Margaret Lindsay - Universal Star
Myrna Loy – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – "Lucky Night"
Jeanette Macdonald - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - "Broadway Serenade"
Robert Montgomery – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – "Fast and Loose"
George Murphy – Universal Pictures
Merle Oberon
Maureen O'Sullivan - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - "Pride and Prejudice"
Eleanor Powell - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - "Broadway Melody of 1940"
Ann Rutherford - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer - "Andy Hardy Meets Debutante"
Sabu – Alexander Korda's "The Thief of Bagdad"
James Stewart – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – "Ice Follies of 1939"
Margaret Sullavan – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer – "The Mortal Storm"
Robert Taylor - "Courtesy of Screen Book"
Spencer Tracy – Metro Goldwyn-Mayer – "I Take This Woman"
Robert Young – Metro Goldwyn-Mayer


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